In a typical wireless communication system such as shown in FIG. 1, a wireless base station 139-N having radio transmission and reception capability connects to a wired telephone network 133. The base station 139-N communicates with both fixed and mobile end terminal subscriber stations. The end terminal devices may be mobile units such as mobile handheld units 124, or wireless drops to antennas 123 at fixed sites 121-N. Many of these sites may require a broader spectrum of services than provided by typical voice or wireless data telephony. However, the conventional wireless base station is restricted in the breadth of service that it can provide.
A new form of communication network processing is the use of Asynchronous Transfer Model signaling and bearer information processing. These ATM networks have great versatility; hence it may be advantageous to enable wireless devices to connect to these ATM networks to reap the benefits of versatility.